I pull a black-leather-and-silver frame from the shelf. There’s the standard picture inside of the flawless-looking couple smiling effortlessly at the camera, like they just happened to be caught in that perfectly posed position.
I’d like to see that couple in front of that magnification mirror. I rub the leather. It’s a nice frame. Zach could put a picture of him and Kate in there for his office. I turn it over and look at the price. Thirty bucks is still steep for a frame, but maybe this will make up for the past eight years of only getting him a two-dollar card.
“Okay. I’ll take this,” I say.
She rings me up a second later. I pay her while she wraps my frame in several layers of paper.
“Have a good day!” she calls.
“Thanks,” I say, being careful to bypass the mirror.
I get home, and Calvin is lying just inside the front door, head resting on the Pilates DVD. He perks up when I walk through the door.
“Roo! Roo!” He starts a happy dog dance, nosing the DVD around.
What a weird dog.
“Hang on, Cal,” I say, stepping around him. I glance at the clock. It’s a little after three, so I have two hours to kill before Jen gets home. I look at his hopeful little brown eyes and sigh. “Okay, we can do Pilates.” Maybe it will calm my nerves.
“Roo!”
“Let me change.”
I go into my room and put Zach’s present on the dresser. I notice my Bible, lying where I slammed it down last night.
I look at it and inhale.
“Cal, you’re going to have to wait a few minutes.”
I pick up the Bible and settle on the bed.
“Lord,” I say quietly, closing my eyes, “I’m long overdue for this, I know.”
Suddenly, there’s a hard plastic box in my lap. “Roo?”
I look down and see the perky smile of the Pilates instructor and Calvin’s long pink tongue.
“Cal, not now, bud.” I rub his ears and move the slobbery DVD off my jeans.
“Roo?” He hops into the spot vacated by the DVD and sticks his nose in my face.
This is not going to work. I scrunch his cheeks in my hands. “Okay. I’ve got to go for a little bit. I’ll be back later.”
If I’m going to talk to God, I’m going to have to get away from all these distractions.
Right then my cell rings.
Of course.
I look at the caller ID and frown. “Hi, Zach.”
“Hey, Maya. How’s it going?” His voice is fuzzy, so he must be calling from his Bluetooth.
“Um. Fine. How are you?”
“Good. Listen, I’m on my way home from the hospital, but I was thinking about you and that whole thing going on with Travis and your roommate and was just curious how it was going.”
I frown deeper. Since when did Zach become the caring brother? “Um. Not so well, actually.”
He tsks. “I’m sorry to hear that, Maya. Want to talk about it? I have a half-hour drive, and it’ll probably be longer because traffic is ridiculous.”
I glance at Calvin, who huffs and settles next to me on the bed, head on his paws, seeing his visions of Pilates going out the window.
“Uh, well — ”
“And you don’t have to. I just remembered that you didn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone when we were moving the other night. And I know that your roommate is your best friend, so I just thought you might need someone to talk to who isn’t emotionally involved.”
“Wow, Zach! I’m so impressed!”
“Well, my birthday is coming up. I’m expecting an embossed ‘World’s Best Brother’ laptop case.”
I roll my eyes, but I hear the smile in his voice.
“Funny, Zach.”
“Thanks. So what’s going on? Did you tell her? Jen, is it?”
“Yeah, Jen. Um, well, not exactly.”
“So she still doesn’t know?”
“No, she knows.” I rub my forehead and spill the story. “Travis came over last night and finally recognized me. He told Jen.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she take it?”
“How do you think she took it?”
He whistles. “Tough luck. Sorry, kid.” He pauses, and I wince, waiting for the condemnation. “I guess you could’ve told her earlier.”
“Thanks, Zach. That’s helpful.”
“Sorry. I’m just saying though. You kind of brought this on yourself.”
“I know.”
“It’s like when you were in the third grade and never did that bug project and then were shocked when you got the F.”
I gape. “That was not my fault! I was sick for two weeks with mono, and Mrs. Dexter never told me about the bug project. The F never went on my record. Mom went and talked to her.”
“Okay, bad example.”
I take a deep breath. “So, what should I do?”
“I don’t know. You’re asking me? I don’t think I’ve ever even met your roommate.”
“True.”
There’s a minute of silence.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I say. “How’s the new house?”
“It’s great. It’s got its little quirks like every other house, and that actually reminds me: I need to stop by Home Depot and pick up a washer for the kitchen sink.” I hear his blinker turn on.
“How’s Kate?”
“She’s good. She told you she had a second interview with one of the law firms near the house, right?”
“Yeah. How’d it go?”
“Really well. They offered her a job.”
“That’s great!”
“Hey, Maya, I’m going to duck inside Home Depot, so I’ll let you go. I hope things clear up with Jen.”
“Thanks for calling, Zach.”
“See you Sunday night, kid.”
I hang up with Zach and look at Calvin, who’s sleeping with his head on the Pilates DVD. Glancing at the clock, I grab my Bible, jacket, and car keys.
I’ve been to the spot I’m thinking of only one other time. It’s just outside of San Diego, but the hour drive is well worth it. I found it completely by accident. A traffic accident deferred everyone off the highway one weekend when I was driving for some alone time, and I drove right into it.
Calvin lifts his head. “Roo?”
“Keep sleeping, boy. I’ll be home soon.”
The drive goes by fast. I’m going the opposite direction of traffic. I have the windows cracked, and I can smell just a hint of salt in the air. My radio’s turned to the local Christian station, but I couldn’t tell you who’s singing. I haven’t been thinking about it.
Last time I drove this was nearly five years ago. My hair was blond; I had big streaks in my makeup from crying the whole way here; and I hadn’t picked up the running to stay on the thinner side yet.
I pass the Mexican restaurant on the left and the rocky crags on the right. The road turns into a dirt and gravel parking lot, but if you follow it around, there’s a tiny service road that leads behind the rocks to the most gorgeous, unobstructed view of the ocean there is.
I check the clock. It’s a little past five, which is perfect. I’ll catch the sunset.
I park right behind a white chain gate blocking auto access to the ocean and turn off the car.
Everything is completely quiet.
I scoot my chair away from the steering wheel, incline it back a few inches, and stare out the windshield.
Four and a half years — has it really been that long since I was here? I rub a hand through my short, curly hair. Yup, must be.
Travis had been late getting to my house that night. Again. I remember pacing in front of the door, getting more and more mad.
Long-distance relationships don’t work.
And it’s not like we didn’t try. High school graduation was both the happiest day of my life — because I was finally done with the meanest calculus teacher on the planet — and also the
worst day of my life — because it meant Travis and I were going separate ways come September.
“We’ll be fine,” he’d said over and over that summer. “I’ll call you every night. We’ll talk; we’ll watch movies over the phone. The semester will fly past.”
On our last day together, he gave me a huge teddy bear and a white-gold bracelet. “This is for you to hug anytime you need one,” he said, handing me the teddy bear. It smelled like his cologne. He put the bracelet on for me. “And this is for you to look at anytime you need to know how much I miss you and love you.”
If anyone had been listening, they probably would have needed one of those little bags the airlines keep in the seat-back pocket.
I wore the bracelet twenty-four hours a day; I cuddled with the bear every single night; and I had absolutely no nightlife waiting for his calls.
But, like I said, long distance doesn’t work.
Stanford is even in the same state as Cal-Hudson, but that didn’t seem to make any difference at all. Phone calls started out regular. Every night at nine, my cell phone would buzz, and Travis would be saying, “Hi there, gorgeous!” And we’d talk for two hours.
Then midterms came, and the phone calls moved to every other night. And Travis would greet me with a “Hi, beautiful” before we compared how much more difficult our professors were this year than in high school. The talks lasted an hour or less.
And finals? I remember walking to Cool Beans — during the preemployment days — to study and not even knowing when our last conversation had been. He called right after his last final and said, “Hey, Maya.” It took fifteen minutes before we were both completely out of stuff to talk about. My days consisted of school, homework, talking to my mom on the phone, and driving home for the weekends. His days, on the other hand, were filled with school, football games, football practice, and then cramming in the homework until past midnight every night.
And while I was sitting in the exact same pew in the exact same church every weekend next to my parents, Travis was using Sundays to sleep in since he’d been working so hard during the week and played a football game every Saturday.
Our list of things we had in common was getting smaller.
We only had to make it to Christmas.
I squint at the beginnings of the sunset, clutching my Bible in my hands. I remember praying my heart out, God, just help us make it to Christmas break. I knew that as soon as we saw each other again, everything would fall into place once more. How could it not? I loved him; he loved me. We had to still have stuff in common.
He had a bowl game two days before Christmas, and I wanted to go so bad. How romantic would that be? Me, wearing a scarf and hat in the Stanford colors, sitting in the stands next to his parents, cheering him on at his last freshman football game? Running onto the field after they won, kissing him on the fifty-yard line?
I know. Reaching for the airline bags again.
Instead, my aunt Jamie and her boyfriend Kyle came into town, and I got to have pre-Christmas dinner with them. So, I sulked at the dinner table and waited for the phone call saying he was finally on his way home.
And waited. And waited.
I called him — no answer. After the game had been over, according to the radio, for five hours, I finally called his mom’s cell phone. They were on their way home, making a stop by the emergency room because Travis had gotten hurt.
I saw him the next day. He was all doped up on pain meds, and his right leg was in a cast and propped up on his parents’ couch.
“Hey, Maya,” he said, all groggily, “Merry Christmas.”
It was awkward.
The sunset is in full color now, and I squish further back in my seat, watching it.
I think we more pretended we weren’t changing than actually believed nothing had changed. I pretended to be interested in his football games and prelaw studies, even though the semester without a reference to a first down or a penalty was probably the most refreshing fall I’d had. And I could tell he didn’t care that much about my English classes or my wanting to move into an apartment instead of the dorm so I could get a beagle.
The Sunday after Christmas, he skipped church again, this time blaming it on his leg. I blamed it on his lack of initiative but gave him the benefit of the doubt.
We hung out a lot, but we never really talked. We watched a lot of movies, saw a lot of high school friends. Everything had that weird, ominous feeling about it — like we had all become different people, but no one wanted to own up to that fact.
The last day before I was heading back to school, I went over to his house for dinner and a movie. It was one of the rare cold days in San Diego — I remember that.
Travis had been switched to a flexible cast. He answered the door without his crutches. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
Dinner was quiet. We ate with his parents, and while his mom and I tried to keep the conversation going, Travis didn’t have much to contribute. I think I suspected right then what was coming.
He ended it right after dinner had been cleared and his parents had left the room. “Maya, I don’t think we should date anymore.”
Just like that. Blunt, honest. Exactly like Travis.
I knew we were going to break up, but just hearing it hurt. I managed a quick “okay then” and left.
“I’m sorry, Maya,” he called after me.
I went back to school the next day and stumbled through the first week of classes. Every time my phone rang, I ran for it, hoping it was him.
I rake a hand through my hair, watching the darkening sky. I guess it was a month before I finally realized we’d broken up. He didn’t call once during that month, though I’d heard from his mom at church that he’d found a good church he was getting involved with out in Stanford. Life felt empty.
So one night when I was on my way back home for the weekend, there was a huge traffic accident on the highway, and everyone was diverted off onto the side roads leading to San Diego.
Which is what brought me here. And where I cried for a good two hours, parked in this exact same spot.
“Oh, Lord,” I sigh. I look around at the complete lack of people around me, the endless ocean in front of me, the rocky cliffs beside me.
“I screwed up,” I say.
I think that if the Bible spoke in the current vernacular, it would say something like Uh, DUH, Maya.
“I ignored You and Your Word. I lied to Jen. I haven’t been acting too lovingly toward Zach. And I’ve complained the whole time to Jack.”
I rub my fingers over the soft leather cover on my Bible.
“And I never let go of Travis.”
Aha!
There it is. Finally out in the last few streaks of daylight. I take a deep breath and look out the windshield again. “It’s not like You didn’t make it obvious that he wasn’t the one for me, either. I’m just hardheaded.”
And stubborn.
“That too.”
The sky is brilliant — reds, pinks, oranges all mixed together on a canvas worthy of awards, sparkling off the rippling water.
“And I’ve been …” I swallow. “Jealous of Jen with Travis.” What a horrible word.
Funny how much better I can hear that still small voice when all those distractions are gone.
Which is why you never told her.
Right then, I remember a lesson that Andrew did one Wednesday night a few years ago. “Tonight, we’re talking about guilt,” he’d said. “Everyone thinks of it as a bad thing, but I want you to see it instead as a pathway to getting back on track with God.”
He’d walked us through Psalm 51.
I turn there, the pages flopping.
“Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkind-ness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”
I point to the words. “This, God. This is what
I want.”
Andrew had said that when our sin is always before us, it blocks our view of God. “Confess your sin; get rid of that wall,” he’d shouted at us.
“God, I’m sorry,” I say. “I kept the truth from Jen, and I never really let go of thinking that Travis was the one. And help me with my relationship with Zach, please. It’s not very good.”
I look over, and a verse in Psalm 52 catches my eye. “I trust in the lovingkindness of God forever and ever.”
Maybe that’s the root of this. Trust.
“And help me to trust You.”
Amen.
I drive away feeling content for the first time in five years.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I end up in Zach’s neighborhood a few minutes later. How, you ask?
Well, I drove there.
I park in front of his house and stare at the lit front window. This does not necessarily mean that they’re home. Zach is one of those people who wastes electricity in order for it to look like they’re home.
So people like me can sit on the street wondering, I guess.
I climb out of the car and up their front steps and lightly tap on the door. I feel weird. I’ve never been over to anyone’s house without calling first, especially not Zach’s.
The door opens a second later. “Maya!” Kate says, surprised and with good reason. I do live an hour away.
“Hi, Kate,” I say.
“Are you okay?” she asks, immediately ushering me into the living room and sitting me down on the sofa. “What happened? Is everything all right? Zach! Maya’s here!” she shouts.
“What?” His voice is laced with panic. “Is she okay?”
I really need to visit these people more.
“I’m fine,” I say loud enough for Zach, who is racing in from the hallway, to hear. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d come see what all you’ve done to the house.”
They both tower over me as I sit on the sofa, arms crossed over their chests, still looking panicked.
“You live an hour away,” Kate says to me, showing off those logical reasoning skills that got her into law school.
“Yes.” I nod.
“And you’re okay? Any pains anywhere?” Dr. Zach says. He not-so-nonchalantly lays his hand on my forehead.